How to Get Over a Breakup, Ovid
How to Get Over a Breakup, Ovid
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How to Get Over a Breakup
An Ancient Guide to Moving On (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)

Author: Ovid, Michael Fontaine

Narrator: BJ Harrison

Unabridged: 1 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/04/2024

Synopsis

Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse's death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid thought so. Having become famous for teaching the art of seduction in The Art of Love, he then wrote Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris), which presents thirty-eight frank and witty strategies for coping with unrequited love, falling out of love, ending a relationship, and healing a broken heart. How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid's lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction.

Ovid's advice—which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology—ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre. Some advice is conventional—such as staying busy, not spending time alone, and avoiding places associated with an ex. Some is off-color, such as having sex until you're sick of it. And some is simply and delightfully weird—such as becoming a lawyer and not eating arugula.

Whether his advice is good or bad, entertaining or outrageous, How to Get Over a Breakup reveals an Ovid who sounds startlingly modern.

About Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso, a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jackie on March 16, 2025

This book was bequeathed on me as a joke, but I am nothing if not committed to the bit so I read it in its entirety. Boy was that a mistake. Ovid is perhaps the original incel edgelord, advising that nice guys fall in love so it’s advisable to be an asshole and a dog at every possible instance. The......more

Goodreads review by Massimo on March 08, 2025

Publius Ovidius Naso, commonly known as Ovid (43 BCE-18 CE) is arguably most famous for his Metamorphoses, a poem that narrates the history of the world from its beginnings to the deification of the assassinated Julius Caesar. But he also wrote much else, for instance “The Art of Love,” where he tea......more

Goodreads review by Rachelle on January 20, 2025

I picked this up because it is a modern translation of Ovid's "Remedies For Love" and I was interested to see how that would turn out. I felt like there was a lot that was left out and/or added to. Unfortunately when we trying to bring something from so long ago into the language of today, there is......more

Goodreads review by Melanie on November 08, 2024

Definitely silly and over the top at times, but some of the basic principals that I thought applied to me the most I did make note of. Since I don't have much experience reading books written in older language, it was a bit difficult for me to fully understand at times, but I feel like I got the gis......more

Goodreads review by Andy on December 08, 2024

This book is a prose translation of an 800-line poem called "Remedies of Love" (Remedia Amoris). The Remedia Amoris (Remedies for Love) first appeared around 2 A.D. Despite its relatively short length, the poem packs an unrivaled density of practical insight.......more

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